Ok, this probably will sound strange to most of you. But I really need some help, and as I will mention late in the post, it might turn the table for Linux in my company (in a good way).

I need to set up a system that will talk to all kinds of computers, including Solaris, Windows, Macs (OS/9) and even an old flat-file "database" system. Well, Linux is of course a good choice for this, since it is able to play nice with just about everyone that lets it, one way or the other.

My setup includes a vareity of different tools, I use PHP, java, perl, MySql, and a lot of other things to manipulate and process data in various ways. Mainly this is huge .eps images and connecting these to data from the company's product database.

But enough about that. I am using netatalk to open a few AppleShare directories, so the Mac people can get access to the images, and add new ones (that is what they do, well they process the images too, of course ).

And here is where trouble potentially arises. They would need to have some letters that Linux is bad at in the names of the files, and probably the directory structure as well. Since they today run their non-integrated image machine on a Mac, they are used to this, and I do need to get these people on my side. Specifically we are talking about spaces and some scandinavian letters (åäöæø).

Alternatives I do have is:

1. Screw the letters. Translate into reasonable approximations, namely 'a', 'o' and underscore when saving. This might cause trouble later, but it is the easy way out for now. Problem is that this might well be what perl programmers refer to as "false laziness", and as I will say later, this will prove to some that Linux isn't good enough.

2. Ditch Linux, and see if I can get this up and working on a Mac instead. This is no option in my view, I don't very much like Macs, I am not very good at them, and they are a b*tch to get to work with other systems.

3. This place! I need your help here. What I do wonder is if anybody has any solution for a problem like this. I can start with a totally clean machine, so nothing is impossible. For instance, if you know of a stable and trustworthy filesystem that handles such flawlessly for linux, I can install that. Or if you know a way to manipulate netatalk to somehow accomplish this (aliases or something?). Or anything that might be of help.

Ok, so this probably sounds like a petty (even wrongful) thing to ask for, but you don't work at the place I do. I can only say Internal Politics. *Deep sigh*.

This system in other places seems to turn out a beauty, and since I really want to promote Linux and Open Source as a way to go, I like to show the company that I can solve any trouble that way, easier and better than the alternatives. Even more so, as they are currently turning more towards Microsoft after heading away from them first.

Sorry about being so wordy, but I really would appreciate any tips on how to solve this.

Thank you!